Abstract

A fiber optic stress sensing technique is applied to evaluate the fragmentation mechanism for pulsed dye‐laser lithotripsy. We demonstrate for the first time that the fragmentation process with microsecond laser pulses originates from the shock wave induced by the cavitationbubble collapse. This shock occurs some hundreds of microseconds after the laser pulse. The shock induced by the plasma expansion, which occurs during laser irradiation, has a minor effect.